KCON LA 2015: Day 1

On July 31st to August 2nd, 2015, KCON moved its convention and concert to Downtown LA at the Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center. I’ll be talking about the day one portion of this event. There was no concert on the first day, but there were tons of things that happened on just the convention day.

At first, things took a bit of a long time to pick up because there wasn’t any official activity until noon. People did have their passes for the concert and convention. Some officially had fan engagements that were willing to trade for the engagements of their choice. Some wanted to see their favorite artists while some wanted to participate in the high touch portions. Some wanted red carpet access to get a glimpse of people they often see on television and their computer screens. Some even offered heavy money to see them.

When the people waiting as patiently as possible were let in, it was on. The first panel I attended was the panel for the introduction of all the KCON performers like Super Junior and Shinhwa. There’s a lot that I don’t know about Super Junior like where they got their name from and more. I was also unfamiliar with majority of the performers of the Sunday portion like Block B and Shinhwa so I felt it was the best opportunity to learn about them without relying on the internet.

Somehow, some way, I was able to get some vouchers for some of the fan engagements. Just because I attended as media doesn’t mean I got all the benefits, so I too also partook in the voucher trading. I had acquired a Zion T. and Crush fan engagement pass. I entered it, and boy was it massively huge. I like to think I’m at least somewhat near average height. I was unable to see as there were way too many people ahead of me. It didn’t help that all those shorter people somehow magically appeared taller with the tippy toes and selfie sticks. Onto the actual fan meet, they have a nice “bromance” going on which made all the girls very excited. When it comes to working with other artists, they’d prefer to work with each other. I felt they were both very shy as they don’t normally get to do fan engagements in the United States too often.

The next panel I attended was the KPop cosplay one because it’s something that’s dear to me. As someone that just started cosplaying this year, I felt it was very informative. Who knows? Maybe I may consider a KPop cosplay down the road or something.

The last event for the day was the Roy Kim fan engagement. I had also acquired his high touch one through lots of trades. It was a different experience being in the front as I could see him a bit better. I actually liked it as he comes across as a very calm and relaxed dude. I don’t think he expected that many people to come see him. The high touch portion was fun too.

The convention room at West Hall was massive too. There were lots of booths giving away free swag and samples on edible products. Some booths were selling KPop goods like t-shirts, posters, and albums. Some booths were even selling anime things as they do seem to cross over. Other booths had fun games with the opportunity to win things like better seats or even better swag. The lines were massively huge for a lot of the booths. Every sponsor had something engaging for the fans.

Day one had things that were just signs of things to come. It was like the appetizer to the full entree. I didn’t attend the Klub KCON portion, but due to fatigue of travel and working on coverage. Stay tuned for days two and three.